Judge and Viera
by Tiikeri
Summary: Sephiroth and Vincent in the world of Final Fantasy XII.


If you want to know how I imagine them to look like in this you better go to my devArt page. You'll find the link in my profile.

I do not own the characters! Square Enix does!

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Judge Sephiroth didn't enjoy being indoors. He didn't enjoy being in the Royal City of Archades either, but being a Judge required both. He hadn't intented to become one but the military training and his crazy father had led things to that before he could really think about it. So whenever some appointment required some of their presence he was first to volunteer. Not that it made a big difference if he was in big building whit important people in Archades, Rabanaste or Bujerba. The insides were always the same but at least the sceneries changed.

This time the work had brought him far to the south in to the city far smaller than he was used to. The palace where he stayed was also less glorious than what he usually saw. And he liked both of these facts.

Few miles to south-west from the palace there was a dark green forest that captured Sephiroth's eyes everytime he had a chance to see it from a window. He asked about it from one of the servants and got to know that it was forbidden to enter that forest. The servant refused to tell the reason and asked Sephiroth not to think about the place.

But Sephiroth wasn't known for his willingness to listen to other's advices and he was curious like a cat. So already in the same evening he easily sneaked out. Even fully armoured it was easy for him to avoid the inhabitants' gazes. The evening air was comfortably cool and wind blew softly a sweet aroma from the direction of forest.

It didn't take him long to get to the shadows of the woods. Strangely he was way more relaxed here than in the high halls of building even when he was much more in danger here. He didn't find any paths but felt that walking whitout them suited him better anyway. One thing that bothered him was the lack of fiends. He could hear couple of them calling for eachother once but didn't come cross any of all. It was too guiet.

After hour of wandering the shadows had got longer and Sephiroth started to feel bored and he still could not understand why the forest was a forbidden place. Then he senced that he had company. Couple seconds later he turned around, reached his hand and grabbed an arrow mid air. He had only a moment to look at his shooter before the person dashed to run away from him, but he immediately recognised them as a viera.

He didn't really have time to wonder so he dashed after the viera, but knowing that he could never catch them -much less in a forest- started to cast a spell while running. When the spell was ready he halted only to say 'immobilize'. The viera's legs stoped from running and their owner fell to the ground. Sephiroth already saw the viera starting to cast esuna so he hurried to the place and drew out his sword.

"I do not appreciate when people try to kill me." he said behind his helmet.

"Neither do I."

Sephiroth was first shocked by the low voice and only then noticed that this viera lacked something every other viera he'd seen so far had had. The viera had long, unruly black hair, dark grey ears, bright red eyes and pale skin. The outfit was small yet full of details and mostly black, the pattern was something he had seen some of the other viera wear but they had all been female. This one clearly wasn't.

"I can see now why they told me not to come here." he said mostly to himself.

"We do not appreciate hume who come to our lands either." the viera said and sat straight. He seemed to be eyeing Sephiroth quite curiosly.

"If hume is what you are."

"I quess you don't get visitors often, but I am -against some believes- a hume."

After that there was a short silence. Sephiroth had the upperhand here and it seemed best to solve this peacefully.

"I think neither of us likes this situation very much so if you promise you won't try to kill me again I will put my sword down and leave your lands."

The viera nodded slowly. Sephiroth took a step back and then put his sword away. He was thinking of leaving whitout second thought when the viera spoke.

"I envy you."

Sephiroth halted.

"Pardon?"

"You can hide yourself whit metal, I believe you have your reasons for that. I just wish I could do that too."

"Well this is pretty good protection, but it could be quite hard to move if..."

"I do not mean that. I mean that no one gets to see your skin, your hair, your eyes, your... face."

Sephiroth was left staring at the viera and wondering what he had meant. All the vieras he had seen hadn't seem to be very eager to hide their body. So the cat's curiosity took over.

"What would you hide yourself for?"

The viera glared at him like it was an offensive thing to ask. He weren't sitting so straight anymore and started to seem defeated.

"Because I'm unnatural." He spat. "Or have you ever seen a viera whit a pale skin and black hair?"

So that was it then.

"No, I admit I haven't." though he could not understand why it seemed to be a bad thing. He kneeled infront of the Viera as if no to scare a wild animal.

"If it's any comfort to you, my out looks aren't kept very natural either." At least for the eyes and hair. His eyes were bright turquoise and had a strange glow in them, and his hair silver, almost white, that he still prefered to keep long, unlike all other Judges. It flowed from his helmet like a second cape.

The viera lifted his gaze looking curious again and leaned a bit closer to Sephiroth as if to see him better. Only then seemed he notice Sephiroth's eyes that had been shadowed quite well by the helm.

"Your eyes have indeed an unusuall color, even though I have encountered only a handfull of hume in my life I believe it's not average color."

"You are right at that." Sephiroth smiled a little behind his helmet, the first time on that day.

"May I see your face?"

Sephiroth was surprised by this and hesitated long for he wasn't supposed to remove his helmet. In this situation however he was curious what the outcome would be and doupted it would cause him harm. In addition he was starting to trust the viera which, he tought himself, was rather ridiculous for he had known him only for a short time.

The other still waited patiently and Sephiroth nodded to agree.

"But in exchance will you let me know your name?"

The viera sighed and said:

"Vincent."

Sephiroth took hold of his helmet and removed it carefully. The viera named Vincent stared at his features for a while.

"You're beautiful for a hume, I think."

Sephiroth was surprised again but answered:

"And you're beautiful even for a viera, I think." Now that wasn't what he had intented to say, tough it was true. He cleared his throat and put the helmet back on.

"I think we've been disdracted by this conversation long enough. It's already quite dark and I still need to find my way back to that palace."

Vincent looked confused and didn't say or do anything until Sephiroth stood up. Then he too hurried up.

"I'll show you the way."

Sephiroth eyed him behind the helmet again.

"Are you sure it's not going to cause you trouble?"

The viera shook his head and started walking the direction Sephiroth had came from. As they walked the night fell and the forest turned to grey. They kept silent until lights from the palace could be seen through the woods and silhouette of the building stood against dark blue sky.

"This is as far as I go." Vincent said. "Even this is too far for them."

"You could come whit me." Sephiroth said tough he didn't believe it. Vincent shook his head yet again. The contrast of his black hair and fair skin still captivated Sephiroth.

"Will I see you ever again?" He asked.

"No."

"Then..." Sephiroth said as he removed his helmet once again and stood near Vincent. "...let this be the farewell." He held the helmet whit one hand and the other he placed on the viera's cheek. He kissed Vincent on the lips. It was slow but only lasted a little while. Vincent didn't answer to the kiss but brushed his hand over Sephiroth's cheek and through some silver locks of hair. Then Sephiroth put his helm back on, took a step back and turned to leave.

"Give me your name."

The Judge could hear pleading in the voice.

"Sephiroth." And he walked away.

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It ended different way than I had planned...

And now I challenge you to write a sequel/prologue/better version, because I like this idea but my talents as writer are very limited.


End file.
